Annika's Day
by scifiromance
Summary: As her 30th birthday dawns, Seven finds herself delving back into her childhood in an attempt to find positive memories, discovering along the way that she can make some on Voyager too... C/7. Set soon after 'Renaissance Man' S07xE24.


**A/n: I was trying to come up with an idea for a Christmas themed fic, but this idea was the one which popped into my head instead. I might write something Christmas themed before the 25****th****, but for now I hope you all enjoy this one. It's set a few days after 'Renaissance Man', i.e. S07xE24. **

Lieutenant Harrow remembered to mumble a quick thank you and goodbye to Seven as he left Astrometrics, the grin that had been warming and stretching his face all day in anticipation of the longed for two minutes of comm. time with his parents still lingering on even after they'd said their goodbyes. Seven hoped he'd at least get a few hours of that afterglow, being in charge of Voyager's daily link to the MIDAS array meant that she'd seen more than a few crewmembers emotionally crash after the euphoria of reconnecting with their families for all too brief a time. Although the daily comm. connection had been declared, and was, a gift and a blessing to the crew, Seven often suspected it reopened the wound of separation for all concerned; after all Voyager was still more than six decades distant of the Alpha Quadrant at its current position and heading.

She issued a hasty order for the Computer to lock the lab's doors as she moved back to the main console to open the last comm. window of the day, hers. It was her practice to discreetly give her own slot to other crewmembers if their need was more pressing, if there had been a death, marriage or birth in a family for example, but in this two week period in which the slots were rotated, on certain days of the month Starfleet sent particularly vital and heavily encrypted data streams that meant comm. time had to be relegated, she'd been able to keep her two minutes without guilt. Even the crewmembers she assisted didn't know where their extra time came from, and she never would've informed them. Commander Chakotay knew about her acts of altruism, in his capacity as her day to day liaison between Astrometrics and the Bridge, he'd caught her at it more than once, and she suspected B'Elanna had an inkling of what she was doing, but neither of them had ever said anything. If they had, she no doubt would've been called up to the Captain's ready room, perhaps not for punishment, but for a show of concern, the Captain always fretted over her relationship, or lack of one, with her biological family.

The Captain however, underestimated her protégé's genuine and growing affection for the closest of those relatives, her father's sister Irene. Seven had actually asked her permission before cutting down their number of conversations to increase the time available to her crewmates, and Irene had agreed wholeheartedly without hesitation. Seven knew it had to cost the older woman, to keep their conversations light, even shallow, and keep to the few pleasant memories Seven had of her childhood, but still she had never been pushy, nor anything other than warm and patient with her 'lost' niece. Still, it had been getting easier on both sides, Seven could now hear her given name, from her aunt's lips at least, without much pain, losing grip on her sense of self-protecting detachment from that identity.

Her fingers finished their agile dance of entering commands into the console and the lab's systems responded with a low bleep of confirmation just before the main viewscreen shifted from the view of a Delta Quadrant starchart to a living image of Irene Hansen's face. That face, still somewhat dislocated from little Annika's memories of her beloved aunt despite that fact that the freshest of those memories were nearly a quarter of a century old now, lit up into a delighted smile that rippled down from sparkling blue eyes. "Annika! I was hoping I would hear from you soon, I'd rather be a little early with birthday wishes than a couple of weeks late!" She chuckled to herself with a small shake of her head, as if she'd forgotten someone's birthday in that fashion more than once.

Seven shifted uncomfortably, she never relished having the spotlight on her in even the most positive sense. "You need not have felt anxiety Aunt Irene, I do not require…"

"Nonsense min flicka."Irene was generally very patient with her niece's Borg preconceptions, but this time she didn't hesitate to correct her, "Everyone requires a little love on their birthday, even on the _big _ones…" She laughed again, "…especially then actually."

Seven raised her eyebrows, though only slightly out of politeness. "If you are referring to the human idea where the thirtieth birthday is considered a milestone, I consider such things irrelevant."

Irene shot her a fond if saddened look, "I'm guessing you don't have anything special planned with your crew for tomorrow then?"

"No." Seven answered simply, "Why would I? The crew have duties to perform, and have their own individual social concerns also. I would not want to impinge on either merely because I am aging by a day, after all, I haven't marked the anniversary of my birth before now."

Irene frowned at her enquiringly, "You keep count of your age by days?" She waved the question away when Seven became awkward and then smiled at her softly, "I suppose your big three-oh can just stay our secret then can't it Anni?" She said with gentle ruefulness, "But it's not true that your birthday hasn't been marked before now…" Pain scarred her face for an instant, "…and not for awhile perhaps, but it was."

Seven winched guiltily, "I…I know that my parents would have…"

"No liten flicka, I don't think you _do _know." Irene told her, becoming tearful, "And that's not your fault, not at all, but it is…heartbreaking that you don't remember." She took a deep breath, "_I'm _the one who remembers that they used to record you at some point every day, birthdays, Christmases, when you were learning to walk and every time you visited me or your grandparents, and that's not fair. For goodness' sake, I remember Magnus admitting to me that he and your mother used to purposefully work the night before your birthday and into early the next morning so that they'd remember to look in at you at the very minute you'd been born each year…"

It was Seven's turn to frown incredulously this time, "Wasn't I born at 0249 hours?"

Irene laughed through her tears, "Underneath their analytical exteriors your parents were two of the most sentimental people I've ever known." She explained with a quirk of her lips, "And they took many of those recordings with them on the Raven, a little piece of home, I told them that they should take some of those long research logs out so they could take all of their home recordings, but Magnus said the computer core wouldn't be able to store anything else if they did that so…"

Seven stiffened, a chill running up her spine as she grasped the edge of the console for support, "They had some…family recordings in the Raven?" she asked, trying and failing to keep the quiver from her voice.

"Of course." Irene confirmed with certainty, peering astutely at her. "I know that their heads were full of the Borg, and I'm not sure either one of us will ever be able to fully forgive that…" Seven felt a lump rise in her own throat as she heard her aunt's voice catch, she knew it must be a wrench for Irene to admit her brother and sister-in-law's failings to herself let alone to their daughter, "…but you have to know that you were _always_ at the centre of their hearts, they loved you. It's just that they let their minds' ambitions dominate for too long…"

"I understand that Aunt Irene." Seven broke in compassionately, though even as she said it she couldn't differentiate herself whether she was lying to comfort her aunt or being honest for the first time without anger clouding her judgement. At that moment, the console bleeped a strident warning. "We only have fifteen seconds left."

Irene rubbed her eyes hastily, though they remained red-rimmed even as she gave Seven a loving, grateful smile. "Grattis på födelsedagen min älskling."

Seven found, thankfully, that she could return the smile despite the turmoil beginning to churn inside her, "Tack så mycket." She replied warmly just before their link cut off.

* * *

"Regeneration cycle incomplete." The Computer's voice, with Borg inflections from the connection to the alcove technology, boomed violently through Seven's ears and reverberated around her skull as she jolted into consciousness as an escape from her nightmare. She had to grasp at the alcove's main console, offset to the side, as she narrowly avoided falling down the step to the Cargo Bay's hard floor. Despite her shaky, almost heaving intakes of breath, she nonetheless managed to step firmly down on second try and stood frozen for a moment to compose herself before allowing her human hand to wipe the grittiness from her left, real, eye. She was disturbed to find that her face was damp with perspiration, though her body actually felt chilled.

Since it was the second time that night that nightmares had involuntarily ended her regeneration cycle, she decided that another attempt to regenerate would be futile, much as she desired it to be otherwise. It wasn't as if this would be her first time slipping into the night shift for a distraction. "Computer, time." She requested quietly, too distracted in that moment to consult her internal chronometer.

"The time is 0239 hours." The Computer reported succinctly.

Seven's stomach clenched as an ironic thought passed through her mind, the two Dr Hansens would've been pleased with her punctuality, she was on her way to continuing that lapsed irrational tradition. Within ten minutes she'd be exactly thirty years old. Of course, it was the anniversary of another event arguably just as significant as her birth. The memory of the day itself was blurry, but she could recall her assimilation profile automatically. Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One. Species 5618, Human. Aged six years and 19 hours at time of assimilation. Her parents, contrary to Irene's belief, hadn't made a fuss of her that day, trying to deal with the ion storm damage that would condemn the U.S.S Raven to a desolate moon and the three of them to assimilation. She'd still had a cake; she could vividly see even now one drone knocking the half-eaten dessert to the floor as it had lunged for her frantic mother…

She closed her eyes, though that of course couldn't remove the image from her mind's eye. Irene hadn't known that her birthday and assimilation were inexorably linked, she'd lost contact with them three years before after her parents had travelled to the Delta Quadrant in the Cube's wake, and Seven had never told her the details of her assimilation beyond the fact that she'd been six at the time, which was common knowledge anyway. Seven never intended to tell her, would let her hold onto pleasant memories in a way that she herself couldn't. However, even as she thought that her eyes wandered to the back of the Cargo Bay where what had been deemed relevant salvage among the Raven's wreckage was still stored. The usually stark lighting of the Cargo Bay was set at its lowest setting, but her optical implant forced her to view the many crates in green tinged detail anyway. She hadn't touched, had even avoided looking toward, what could be considered the ashes of her family life, her _human _life, since that mission to commandeer a Borg transwarp coil had gone so wrong. She'd resented having to go through it then, and though her resentment at the Captain for those orders had later been smothered by feelings of relief and gratitude for being saved from the Queen, it still showed herself in that she had resisted the Raven's cache even more staunchly since then. Tonight though, it seemed to taunt her into approaching, what her aunt had said still ringing in her ears.

She glanced furtively up at Icheb, still safe up in his alcove; though he hardly needed to regenerate anymore since he'd donated his cortical node to her. She didn't want to rouse and then worry him. Even as she felt a surge of affection for the thankfully peaceful boy, the thought of what _his _parents had done to him burning her again, it was like an ember she always kept alive in her mothering heart, loneliness also sharpened its blade then twisted inside her. It had been a particularly persistent feeling these past few days, since the Doctor had proclaimed his love for her in a 'deathbed' confession. She'd felt anger even as it mixed with guilt, how could he complicate one of the only _friendships _she had? When that had faded somewhat, the guilt had resurfaced compelled by sadness. She didn't love the Doctor, not in a romantic sense, and never would, that would be as unlikely as falling for a complete stranger, but she was also very aware that any man would come to the same conclusion about her. If she let that one commonality tie her to the Doctor however, it wouldn't be fair on either of them. She just hadn't said as much to him yet, and she certainly wasn't going to do so tonight, not when he'd also expect her to confide why she wasn't regenerating as instructed.

These thoughts were pushed from her mind as she found herself moving towards the back of the Cargo Bay, hearing a sob which couldn't and yet had to be her own echo around the tall crates as she began to dive through them, searching. Eventually, in the one, smaller, crate that contained fragments of truly personal possessions in contrast to the research data that overflowed from the others; she found what she hadn't even consciously been looking for. Video and holo-files that were labelled with less Borg centric titles, four Christmases from 2347 until 2351, her parents' wedding and honeymoon, both sets of grandparents' weddings, a documentation of her mother's pregnancy, and ten others all labelled with 'Annika' in capital letters. As the dust that clung to each file made her human hand as grey as her Borg one, she almost threw them all to the floor in a rage but in the next instant she'd left the Cargo Bay en route to Deck Six and the holodecks.

**A/n: PLEASE REVIEW! :D I know I've let my love of languages take over a bit in this chapter once again, but I felt it suited the story. Realistically Seven and Irene would be speaking Swedish throughout if they're both native speakers, as I like to write them as, rather than in snippets, but of course my writing language is English, lol. The Swedish I did try to add was 'liten flicka', little girl, and their last exchange is Irene saying 'Happy Birthday my darling' and Seven's response is a very formal form of 'thank you'. I apologise to any Swedish readers in advance for any mistakes. **


End file.
